Read Online Our Turn by Kirstine; Stewart - Free Book Online Page B

time to go home. It was just after 9/11, which had deeply affected my colleagues, and not only in our New York office. My oldest daughter was just about to start grade school and I was tired of not getting to eat Shreddies. But with every job that followed, I carried a little bit of that American-daring sensibility with me. In 2003, when I became the senior vice-president of programming for the Alliance Atlantis specialty channels, the experience I’dgleaned at Hallmark allowed me to do what I felt needed to be done, and that meant shaking things up.
    The job involved responsibility for programming the broadcaster’s lifestyle channels, which were in need of renovation. A lot of the shows were of the strictly instructional variety: how to plan a party, set the dinner table, plant begonias. But as I’d already seen in the US, reality-based shows that told a story as they imparted information were gaining real traction with audiences keen not only to learn, but to learn while being entertained. Tastes were changing and we needed to get ahead of the audience. Not long after I arrived, I heard a pitch from the team for a show from a contractor named Mike Holmes that seemed to fit this bill perfectly. At the time, Mike had been featured on CTV doing lunchtime news break how-to segments. But he saw potential in recasting himself as a kind of vigilante contractor, the big guy who comes in to nail the crooked contractor who wrecked your home with shoddy installation or substandard plumbing that flooded your basement.
    I was intrigued by the drama he was selling. For most people, their homes are the biggest—perhaps the only—investment they’ll ever make. Then someone comes along and takes advantage of their efforts to make improvements and puts their greatest asset at risk. This was real-life drama. If Holmes could rescue them from that fate, he was more like a white knight than a vigilante. That tweak to the concept made Holmes on Homes something unique in the home-improvement genre, a show that wouldn’t just demonstrate how to repair a broken tile, but would tug at viewers’ hearts.

    The team was nervous. Personality-driven narrative was a risky venture. Building a whole show around a relatively unknown guy was not a safe bet. And building a show around one person whose name was in the title was asking for it. What if viewers didn’t like Mike Holmes? The show would die. If we pulled it off, he’d become a celebrity and could leave the network for the big time someplace else. Building him into a star would give him power the networks were reluctant to share. Talent was considered safest when it remained nameless and faceless, and therefore interchangeable. But not taking this risk meant passing up on the potential of great reward. As I had learned, sharing power and investing it in others comes back with big dividends.
    I decided that Mike Holmes needed to be front and centre. And who would pass up a title like Holmes on Homes ? No one else on TV looked like him—this big strapping man with a buzz cut and overalls. Mike had the perfect look to play a white-knight character, and I was sure the show would be a hit; the possibility that its popularity would ultimately cost us Holmes sounded like a short-sighted reason not to try. If we cultivated a trusting relationship and committed to supporting Holmes’s development, he’d have every reason to stay. In the end, it was my call and my risk to take, and I took it, knowing I had spotted “it” in Mike Holmes and I didn’t want to let it get away.
    There’s been a sea of ink spilled on the way leaders, and women in particular, regard risk-taking. Most of it has cast women as being almost biologically risk-averse, genetically driven to cautiously mind the cave and pick berries with babesstrapped to our backs. According to the evolutionary stereotypes, we weren’t out hunting and confronting death at every turn, so